


Beyond the Wallpaper

by salable_mystic



Category: The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 20:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11676660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salable_mystic/pseuds/salable_mystic
Summary: This might be what happens after ... a story of obstacles, and freedom, and smelly things.





	Beyond the Wallpaper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tekuates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tekuates/gifts).



> Uh, so I must admit that I feel a tiny little bit dirty having defaced Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" like this ... but in a good way? This is also my New Year's Resolution fic for Yuletide, as I had to drop out last year due to RL. Hope you enjoy, Tekuates, and thank you for the intimidating :-) prompt!

The women creep. Always, relentlessly, unceasingly, they creep.

I keep a close watch on them from my perch at the barred window, above the now destroyed yellow wallpaper, next to the bolted down bed. 

They creep over the lawn, the walkway, the road outside the house, until I lose track of them amid the hedges and the tree line and the fence that all border the Estate. I cannot see clearly as far as the lake, anymore, so I don’t know if they swim or simply creep across it, though I would not put it past them.

John is still lying next to the door, unmoving.

He has not moved in seemingly days, and he must be very hungry and thirsty by now. I think he will be done sleeping soon, although he has gone very cold and stiff in his sleep. Maybe I should have given him the blanket, after all, but I really could not see the sense in providing such a cold-hearted man with one of the few comforts that this barren room holds for me. A barren and lonely room, now that the women have all escaped onto the lawn outside and only I remain in here. Well, I, and John, but I am no longer counting him.

No one has come by in a while, to deliver food and drink, and while I do not miss it I can feel a certain gnawing inside that will only be satisfied by sustenance or freedom – or maybe both.

I will soon join the women outside, tough, to revel in our newly gained freedom, now that the bars of the wallpaper have been destroyed and torn asunder, and then my cravings shall be satisfied. Soon, but not quite yet, for my self-set assignment up here in this room is not quite complete yet. I still need to keep watch over John, after all, to make sure that when he wakes up he will not try to imprison the women again, up here with me and behind the wallpaper. 

They have escaped from the wallpaper, I have escaped from the wallpaper, and going back behind it is, for all of us, utterly inconceivable. 

So I watch the women outside, and wait for John to wake up. 

I am not idle in my waiting and in my watching, though – I practice the free women’s crawl, around and around this room that I will soon leave behind, along the grove in the wall that sits just right, at shoulder height, for me, past the bolted down bedstead with the gnawed corners, and across John. 

John being in my way like he is is both annoying and very helpful, as it forces me to practice my crawling skills not just on an even wooden floor, but also across an obstacle, up and down and across. This will come in handy when I need to crawl across curbs and among the shrubs and flower beds outside. 

John is resigned to my practicing now, at least, which is good – initially he used to grunt every time I crawled across him, but he is quiet about it now, and has obligingly stiffened himself in such a way as to provide me with a firmer obstacle than he initially did. I only wish he had washed himself before he came to see me, as I cannot help noticing, whenever I crawl across him, that his smell has become somewhat … unpleasant now.

But, I do not mind. The outside world will contain such patches of unpleasantness as well, and thus this, too, is good practice for my future freedom and crawling outside this room.

The house has been quiet for days, and so the only occupation I really have is to either watch the free women crawling outside from the window or to practice my own crawling, but now something seems to be changing, for the women outside are hiding themselves in the bushes and away from the open lawn, crawling and creeping into the tree line and towards the cover of the fence.

They do not vanish entirely, though – I can see their eyes still, gazing out from leaves and shrubbery and iron fencing, from the reeds of the lake and from the flower beds, looking up towards the window, watching for me, waiting for me. It is rare for one of us to lift her eyes, and thus now I feel their urgency all the more keenly. 

They want me to come and join them outside. 

But I cannot, not yet, I want to tell them, for I still need to wait for John to wake up so that I can make sure that he will not follow us when we crawl away. 

Noises have started downstairs in the house, and the women are becoming restless, shifting. What am I to do? Do I wait for John? Maybe if I give him the blanket he won’t be so cold and stiff when he wakes up, and think of me fondly enough to not immediately notice my absence and come after me? No, not John - he has always been unyielding and unfeeling will now remain thus forever. But, what if I roll him tight in the blanket? It will take him long to detangle himself, stiff and cold as he is, and then I will have crawled away to where he won’t find me.

Yes, yes, that is what I shall do. I must risk it. To remain here means discovery, not only for me, but for all women. All the women from behind the wallpaper, and all the ones from without. And discovery and the patterns it brings is not something we can afford to return to.

Rolling John in the blanket is hard and disgusting work, because not only is he cold, stiff, and smelly, he is also sticky in places, and the stickiness clings to me most uncomfortably. But I manage it and wipe what I can of the stickiness off on the bed and the torn wallpaper, leaving long smears of red and brown. It hurts me to see the torn wallpaper so defaced, but it will have to do, as a price for our freedom.

The house is quiet now, and a glance out the window shows me that the unwanted visitors have gone outside, to investigate the garage. The women tell me that they will delay them in there, for me, so that I can take this chance to crawl away from John and the wallpaper, out of this room and down the stairs and out the house and into the woods and shrubbery and fence. The path along the fence seems the most welcoming to me, as a starting point for the world outside – maybe it will have a grove to lean one’s shoulder into, just as this room and the wallpaper so accommodatingly did?

But first I must conquer the stairs – which will be hard, a downward climb, but not impossible. 

Not for me, not now, and never again. 

Nothing will be hard to crawl over, under, away from, across, or down anymore for me now – not when I have had so much practice crawling for John.


End file.
